


Coming to an Understanding

by Lyricoloratura



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Case Fic, Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Fluff and Angst, Greg Lestrade is a Good Friend, Hurt/Comfort, John Watson has been through a LOT, Lestrade has had it with Sherlock's nonsense, M/M, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock Holmes is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21556936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyricoloratura/pseuds/Lyricoloratura
Summary: Holmes has returned in triumph from his Great Hiatus, but things... aren't quite right.  His friends are furious with him over his treatment of Watson -- and although his doctor has agreed to become his flatmate once more, he is somehow not the same man that Holmes once knew.  It takes some unusual circumstances for Sherlock Holmes to finally understand Watson, and -- more importantly -- to understand himself.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes, Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes & Lestrade, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 75
Collections: Holmestice Exchange - Winter 2019





	Coming to an Understanding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gowerstreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gowerstreet/gifts).



> Happy Holmestice to dear Gowerstreet -- who probably wanted a little bit less angst than ended up happening here. (It wasn't my intent, I swear.) But you have my word that it all ends well.

I suppose it goes without saying that ours has never been a conventional friendship, Watson’s and mine. Quite frankly, I’d never intended to become friends with him at all, and was more than just a bit astonished when our tenure as flatmates lasted longer than the first three months. (No one had ever tolerated my presence in their living quarters for even that long; even my elder brother, who felt familial affection and obligation toward me, had tossed me out onto the pavement within six weeks. Not that I blamed him, honestly.)

No, I moved in with Watson out of financial necessity, and he had chosen to share a flat with me for the same reason. Knowing him and his baffling faith in the goodness of human nature, perhaps Watson was less surprised than I when our acquaintanceship turned to friendship – but at any rate, it did indeed do so. And to the surprise of no one but myself, I suppose, I soon learned that John Watson was as valuable a friend and as valiant a comrade as any man could hope to possess.

Our friendship survived such trials as his marriage (granted, more of a trial for me than for Watson), and my three-year absence after my supposed death at the Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. For Watson’s sake, I was grieved to learn of the (actual) death of his wife during my absence, but I was heartily glad when he eventually agreed to move in with me again in our former lodgings in Baker Street. 

Others of our mutual acquaintance, such as my brother Mycroft and our friend Lestrade of Scotland Yard, expressed incredulity that Watson would be willing to do this after all that had passed between us; they both felt that Watson had been dreadfully ill-used by my having allowed him to believe me dead for all those years. 

Mycroft, particularly, seemed to feel a great deal of indignation toward my treatment of Watson (his favorite descriptive terms being “heartless” and “cavalier”) – but I was not unaware of his sentiments by this time. He had, as the only other living soul who was aware of my survival, protested most bitterly and with increasing urgency over the course of the last two years of my hiatus that it was “absolutely vital” that Watson be allowed to know that I yet lived. 

Clearly, I disagreed – and since it was my life on the line at that point, my decision of course prevailed. It was, however, still a highly fraught topic between myself and my brother even once I had returned and Watson knew all. Mycroft had never told me why, and I had certainly never asked him.

Watson himself, oddly, had little enough to say about the entire affair – but then, upon my return I had found a somewhat changed John Watson to the young veteran with whom I had originally taken up lodgings. He was still glad to join me on cases whenever it was practical, but his medical practice now seemed to consume a great deal more of his attention than previously. 

Moreover, he was a good deal quieter now than when we had lived together before; where in the past I would sometimes find his seemingly endless good-natured conversation to be almost tiresome, these days I might go an entire afternoon and evening without hearing a dozen words out of him. And while I had been able to read new stories from him during my hiatus – he had gone back into our files and found any number of obscure cases to write about – lately his pen had lain idle on his writing desk. 

In his writings, Watson has given me rather outrageous credit for my gifts of observation and deduction. Looking back on this period of our lives together, I can only feel ashamed of myself for willfully choosing not to more closely observe this dearest of friends, or for neglecting to deduce how and why his behavior toward me had altered. 

My selfishness (and indeed, my cowardice) cost Watson a good deal, and could have cost me far more.

~o0o~

It was a ghastly night in early February – combining cold and damp in the way that only London seems able to achieve – when, as Watson has since put it, things began to get interesting. 

I had been pursuing a particularly clever forger whose _modus operandi_ was at least somewhat creative; he had enlisted a small group of _soi-disant_ local artists who had sufficient talent to reproduce the works of others, even though they had not yet been successful on their own, and was paying them a fraction of what their forged paintings fetched for him. 

Edward Griffith had quietly taken over a modest London art dealership from the elderly gentleman who had been the original proprietor – and who had not been heard from since then, with Griffith reporting that Mr. Hollingsworth had planned to visit relatives in Scotland. 

I had my own doubts as to the whereabouts of the gentleman in question – and I rather suspected (correctly, as it later turned out) that Scotland had very little to do with where he might currently be found. It was at the behest of Mr. Hollingsworth’s niece, Miss Edith Caruthers, that I was investigating Mr. Griffith to begin with.

“I know that Uncle David would never have left the business to Griffith of his own volition, Mr. Holmes,” she had told me on a frosty January morning in our rooms on Baker Street. 

I was sorry that Watson was not there to meet her as well; it was always interesting to me to hear his ideas about our clients, regardless of how misguided they might be. However, a number of virulent diseases had been making their rounds through the city, and Watson was spending even more time than usual performing duties of _locum tenens_ at St. Bart’s. 

His frequent absences from our flat made the prospect of a time-consuming case even more appealing to me than it might otherwise have been.

Fortunately for me, my maternal grandmother’s brother had been the painter Horace Vernet, and she had been a gifted painter in her own right. She had seen a glimmer of talent in me as a child, and undertook to train me extensively in the art of painting and portraiture so as to allow the “family gift,” as she called it, to be passed on to a younger generation. But again, I digress. 

Thanks to my grandmother’s efforts, I was able to infiltrate the odd little ring of faux artists myself. I had even managed to produce a creditable reproduction of a minor Carracci work, and thus was able to avoid drawing unfavorable attention to myself in the busy little studio.

For all that I had managed to take on different identities and elude enemies for nearly three years not so long ago, I am not proud to say that I lasted barely more than a week in Griffith’s studio. By day, I painted unremarkable pastoral scenes, and by night I observed (and occasionally followed) the comings and goings of a gang of thugs between the studio and the dingy wharves nearby. 

A week was sufficient time for me to do the research necessary to have the blackguard arrested and charged with not only forgery and fraud, but murder – but not, alas, without gaining said blackguard’s rather unfavorable attention.

I’d been on my way to meet Lestrade and some of his men to affect the arrest when a burly arm came across my neck from behind with enough force to make inhaling a challenge.

“Thought ye were bein’ right sneaky, din’t ye, ye little weasel?” 

I recognized the voice immediately; it belonged to one of the larger and less idiotic of Griffith’s gang of bruisers. 

I knew Lestrade to be nearby, but I would have to count on his not unremarkable powers of observation for him to realize that I was not where I was supposed to be and come to the appropriate conclusions before “Big Morty” did significant damage.

 _Watson and his pistol would have been at your back at an instant, had you but asked him._ The accusatory voice in my head as my brain struggled for oxygen sounded like Mycroft. 

And he was right, as usual. 

But I hadn’t asked – indeed, I hadn’t seen Watson in over a week. A flash of guilt brought home to me that he had no idea where I was unless Lestrade had told him – and that, if the gentleman currently trying to crush my windpipe had his way, my friend might never see me alive again.

Oddly, it was this thought that provided me with a sudden surge of strength, and I broke free from Morty’s grip after having delivered a rather savage bite to his filthy wrist. Knowing better than to try to fight him, I took to my heels and fled in the direction of the wharf where I knew the Yarders to be waiting.

As I came closer to the river, there was an unholy din behind me – but rather than turn around and slow my escape, I kept going, albeit with flagging speed as my breath was still coming in wheezing gasps after Morty’s attentions to my throat. 

Never before had the report of a Webley revolver and cries of “Halt! Police!” sounded like music to my ears, but those were the sounds that told me that my salvation was near at hand; I turned, still running, to get a better idea of the situation.

Perhaps it was my relief that made me thoughtless, or perhaps it was simple clumsiness – but in the next instant, my foot had caught upon an uneven board, and I went flying. I was in the Thames, struggling to keep my head above the greasy water, before I could even understand what had happened.

The young constable who was sent in to fish me out seemed less than pleased to do so, and his displeasure was even more evident when I unintentionally vomited a good deal of river water onto his already soaked boots. 

I was never more grateful to see Lestrade’s exasperated face before me as he took charge of me, taking my dripping jacket off of my helplessly shivering body and wrapping me up in a rough woolen blanket with more efficiency than tenderness.

“Best get you home before you catch your death,” he muttered. “Hell to pay for me if I let anything happen to you.” He shouted something – I know not what – to his men, then bundled me into a cab that had seemingly materialized out of nowhere. 

Then it became quiet, and very dark.

The cab had pulled up to 221B Baker Street without my having realized it; the after-effects of my run-in with Griffith’s thugs and my subsequent dip in the Thames had left my powers of observation sadly diminished. 

Moreover, as little as I would have cared to admit it at the time, I had exhausted myself almost to the point of physical collapse after a week with essentially no food or sleep. ( _And no Watson chiding you to eat or to rest_ , a stray thought teased at the edge of my consciousness.)

Lestrade alit from the cab first, pulling me out after him with a gentleness that vaguely surprised me.

“Come, then, lad, we’ll get you seen to.” He had my keys – God only knows how – and was about to open the front door when instead he paused, seemingly shocked into speechlessness.

“Doctor Watson! What on earth are you doing out at this time of the night?” 

For indeed, there stood my Watson behind us on the pavement, looking as baffled as Lestrade sounded. He didn’t bother to answer Lestrade’s question, moving to me instead and grasping me by the shoulders, scanning me up and down before looking searchingly into my face.

“What has happened? How have you been hurt?” His voice was hoarse and urgent, and I wished to reassure him as quickly as possible that I was in fact quite well.

Evidently, what I did instead was to fall into a completely humiliating swoon there on my own front doorstep, leaving my two friends to see to getting my useless carcass up the seventeen stairs to our flat.

I came to myself again just as I was being laid down upon the settee in our sitting room and covered with the blanket in which I had previously been wrapped. I think we were all equally grateful that Mrs. Hudson had been in earlier in the evening to see that there was a fire in the hearth, providing us with both warmth and a bit of light. 

I was able to reach up and grasp my friend’s hand; it was so very warm. “Watson,” I began, thinking to reassure him of my well-being.

He squeezed my hand in return. “Hush, now, Holmes. You’ve been through a bit of a shock, and nearly drowned on top of it. And if I have my guess,” he looked accusingly at my pale face and the dark circles that were doubtless beneath my eyes, “you’ll have been many days without sleep and barely any sustenance.”

I could only sigh, guilt-stricken, in response. But Watson smiled reassuringly, patted my shoulder through the blanket, and said, “We’ll have you right as rain in a trice, my friend. That’s what comes of living with your own physician.”

I may have smiled in return, but I was quickly drifting into a place that was dark, and warm, and peaceful, and where all that I could hear were the quiet tones of John Watson’s voice.

~o0o~

Awareness came back to me slowly; I still felt decidedly damp and more than a little nauseated by the rank smell of river water that permeated my clothing. It says something for my physical condition’s effect on my mental acuity that I could not immediately find a remedy for that situation, but instead continued to lie on the settee and wonder fretfully what was to be done. 

Presently, I could hear the sounds of the bathtub being filled, and the distant voices of Watson and Lestrade. 

They were… arguing? It seemed to be the case; Lestrade was speaking, _sotto voce_ , in angry, remonstrative tones, and Watson was replying in kind. Their actual words were lost to me due both to the sound of the water and my own admittedly diminished perception. 

Some minutes later, both men reappeared into the sitting room and walked over to my little nest on the settee. They were glaring wordlessly at one another, but moved in concert to help me sit up as they began to remove my sodden garments. I stood, dazed, as they worked silently to strip me nearly bare and guided me toward the steaming bathtub.

“I’ve got him from here, Lestrade,” murmured Watson. “For God’s sake, go home and go to bed.”

“And how long has it been since you’ve… and now you’ve got… and how the _hell_ do you propose to be any good to him if you’re…” Lestrade somehow managed to get his point, whatever it was, across to Watson without having been able to finish a sentence, though his furiously whispered utterances left me completely at sea.

“I’m fine. Fine, do you understand? If you doubt me, come and call upon us in the morning. You can share breakfast with us.” I recognized that tone in Watson’s voice, but at that moment it was beyond me to place it.

“You’re a fool, Watson, and I won’t have you destroying yourself. For God’s sake, man, think of yourself for once!”

_Watson is most certainly **not** a fool – he’s clever, and witty, and unexpectedly brilliant in the most perfect moments, and he’s brave, and beautiful, and…_

The argument in my head did not sound like Mycroft this time; it sounded very clearly like my own voice. 

But before I could give that another moment’s thought, Lestrade was angrily thrusting his arms into his overcoat in preparation to take his leave.

“I most certainly will call upon you in the morning, never doubt it,” he growled. “And if I can’t talk sense into you, I’ll bring along someone who can.”

The door to our flat clicked shut, and I heard Watson whisper, “Oh, for God’s sake, not both of them.”

~o0o~

The next few hours passed in a strange patchwork of jumbled impressions. Looking back, I can say that I was only occasionally aware of my surroundings throughout the night, though I had the certainty that I was safe wherever I was, as I could sense that Watson was nearby at all times.

I was in the bath now, and being gently scrubbed clean from the stinking filth of the Thames. It was Watson’s soap I smelled instead of my own, and it was somehow unutterably comforting.

Water was being poured over my head, through my hair, when suddenly I felt the panic of being near to drowning in the freezing river and thrashed to get to the surface, to safety. Strong arms, so very warm, held me up, free of the water.

“There now, lad,” Watson’s voice was uncharacteristically tender. “Rest easy, now. You’re safe, here in my hands. I’ve got you, see?” Those surgeon’s hands, strong and capable, were gently stroking the wet hair out of my face. “Dinna fash yourself, lad, always safe here with me.” I’d never heard Watson’s Scottish burr – though I knew he'd worked hard to train himself out of it during his days at university and in medical school. I thought, as if from a great distance, that it was actually rather charming.

I was still trembling despite Watson’s sure grasp and his quiet voice in my ear. He was gently drying my hair with a towel when I began to relax again, and realized that he was softly singing in much the same calm, reassuring tones he’d used to speak to me moments before. 

I had also never before heard Watson’s singing voice, I realized with vague surprise. Like the rest of him, it was strong and beautiful, a wonderfully resonant baritone. The tune was unfamiliar to me, with a Celtic lilt. I vaguely noted that it was in 6/8 time, and utterly lovely.

_Oh hush thee my dove, oh hush thee my rowan.  
Oh hush thee my lapwing, my little brown bird._

_Oh fold thy wings, and seek thy nest_ _now._  
 _Oh shine the berries on the bright tree._  
 _The bird has come home from the mountain and valley…_

The darkness was warm and scented with sandalwood.

~o0o~

I awakened in my own bed, and was momentarily stunned at the sight of an angel at my bedside, glowing in tones of gold and silver. 

As my wits slowly returned to me, I realized that the vision next to me was in fact John Watson, asleep in the chair by the window with firelight gilding his face while moonlight limned his fair hair in silvery white light.

 _No less lovely for not being an angel,_ I thought. I found myself gazing upon his sleeping face for a long moment, as if to commit him to memory. 

I realized with no small relief that I was feeling like myself again, thanks to Watson and his steadfast care. A moment later, I also realized that the poor man would awaken stiff and miserable if he continued to sleep in such an unnatural position; he needed his own bed and his own rest.

“Watson?” I spoke softly, so as not to startle him. He was awake instantly.

“Holmes? How are you feeling?” He was searching my face in the same way I’d seen a hundred times; I referred to it in my own mind as his “diagnosing” look, and I knew myself incapable of deceiving his scrutiny.

“Thanks to you, my friend,” I said with complete honesty, “I’m feeling — and smelling, I might add — a great deal more human and less like a drowned rat.” I smiled ruefully up into his exhausted face. “Though it seems a poor bargain on your part – I am wondrously better, and you’ve had to tend to me instead of resting yourself.” 

It was only then that it occurred to me that he had only arrived home at the same late hour as Lestrade and myself. “I shudder to think, Dr. Watson, how long it’s been since you’ve seen your own bed.”

He shrugged – and in just that small gesture, I saw hours of weariness. “Part of being a doctor,” he said with forced lightness. “People don’t always become ill at convenient times.”

I began to understand how frustrating it must feel for him to try to persuade me to see to my own care in similar circumstances. 

“Even so,” I protested, “you are not the only doctor in London, or even at St. Bartholomew’s. It is imperative that you get enough rest lest you become ill yourself.”

Watson looked sharply up at me for a moment before seeming to relax again. “So I’m told, Holmes – and please don’t think for one moment that you’re the first one to say so.” 

He shook his head slightly. “Not even the first one tonight, for that matter.”

With that, he placed his hands on the armrests of the chair and eased himself, groaning, to a standing position. 

“As you prescribe, Dr. Holmes,” he said with an ironic bow of his head, “I’ll see myself off to bed now.” 

He smiled down at me once more. “I’m glad you’re better, my boy. It wouldn’t do at all to have you ill.”

We bade one another goodnight, and I believe I was asleep again before Watson had made it all the way up the stairs to his own room.

~o0o~

It was no angel at my bedside when next I awoke in the full light of late morning.

“I had to see for myself that you were in fact alive and in one piece, little brother.” 

Mycroft’s significantly taller frame folded into the armchair was in marked contrast to Watson’s the night before. “Honestly, I don’t know how you get yourself into some of these scrapes.”

“Of course you do, brother mine,” I replied sardonically. “Especially since you have, shall we say, a confidential source at Scotland Yard.”

He glared at the offhand tone of my response — which, after all, had been my goal. “Yes, yes, of course, that’s always your recourse, isn’t it?” 

Mycroft was uncharacteristically easy to rile this morning; he usually took my ribbing about his friendship with Lestrade more calmly. 

Neither of us saw fit to discuss that the relationship had been more than simply friendship for years, and that the two of them were clearly devoted to one another. I had no issue with it at all, as I felt that our nation’s laws against inversion were patently ridiculous – and I was genuinely pleased that my brother had found someone with whom he could share his life. 

That Lestrade was also my colleague and dear friend made the situation easier at times, and more difficult at others.

“You knew I was going to be fine, Mycroft.” I watched his face carefully — frustratingly, his was a countenance that could nearly always elude my powers of deduction if he so wished. “Why are you really here?”

“Get up,” he said shortly. “Get dressed. We need to have a talk, and I won’t do it with you in your nightshirt.” With that, he stood and stalked out of the room.

Within a few minutes, I had indeed dressed and made my way out into the sitting room. I was not at all surprised to see Lestrade awaiting us there – I was, however, surprised not to see Watson with him. Then I heard his bedroom door open, and looked to the stairs to greet my friend…

…but it was not my Watson who came down the narrow staircase.

“Stamford?” I sounded like the veriest idiot, as it was clearly Watson’s colleague Stamford who was closing his medical bag as he walked into the room. “What is going on?”

Mycroft rolled his eyes at me as though utterly disgusted with my inability to absorb the obvious. Fortunately, Lestrade was willing to answer.

“He’s had a relapse of his fever, he wouldn’t tell anyone, he’s been trying to work through it for two days. Last night, he was burning up and so ill he could barely stand – and then somehow, God only knows how, he put it all aside to care for you. And now… now he’s paying for it. He’s a fool.” 

Lestrade had begun pacing back and forth as he spoke, becoming more agitated with each sentence. Finally, Mycroft stopped him with a hand on the shoulder and a long, significant look.

“He’s not a fool,” Mycroft replied quietly. “He’s… well, he has his own reasons for what he does, and we’re in no position to judge.” 

He looked up at Stamford, who had been watching these proceedings from the stairs with no small degree of interest. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know if you’ve known any other veterans of the Afghan campaign, but unfortunately relapses of this fever aren’t uncommon among them.”

The doctor shook his head sadly. “Lord knows that the fever itself killed more good men than the enemy did, so Watson knows enough to be grateful he was spared. I’ve given him some quinine, and left more for him to take every four hours until the fever passes. The worst should be over in the next day or two, and with luck he’s on the mend after that.”

I needed to see him. Watson was alone upstairs, and ill, and I needed to be there. I was headed to the stairs almost before Stamford was done speaking, but the round-faced doctor clasped my arm with unexpected strength.

“I also dosed him with a bit of morphine, for the pain and to allow him to sleep. You’ll do him no good right now, but he’ll need you – or someone – in a few hours when he’s awake again. Meanwhile, let him rest.” 

He turned me around and propelled me slightly toward my own chair. “From what I understand, you should be taking some care with yourself this morning.”

With that, he looked across the room at my brother, who was obviously responsible for the doctor’s presence this morning. “Send for me if the need arises, of course.” Then he nodded a brief farewell to all of us, and saw himself out.

All of a sudden, I felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, and I dropped into my chair. My brother had said that we needed to talk; I realized, instead, that I needed to listen. 

I looked over at Mycroft and Lestrade, who stood silently next to one another, waiting.

“Tell me,” I whispered. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

~o0o~

I came to realize at length that I, who purported to be a genius at observation and deduction, was in fact an imbecile when it came to observing human emotion – or at least I was when it came to my own.

I had to hear from my brother, who had observed where I had been blind, about the depth of Watson’s feelings for me, and how longstanding those feelings had been. It was Mycroft, of all people, who told me that the realization that his tender feelings were not – could never be – requited had led to Watson moving on, finding a wife, and leaving me before I broke his heart. 

I managed to do that anyway, as Lestrade told me with a distinct lack of sympathy. Watson had well and truly broken with my “death,” returning from Switzerland like an automaton, a bare shell of the man he had been. 

His poor wife saw the change in him, and knew it for what it was; in her lingering final illness, she had begged Lestrade to look after her John, because “he’ll have lost both of us, now.” It wasn’t an easy task to undertake, he explained, because once Mary passed, “he lived like a man with nothing to live for.” 

Finally, Mycroft told me, there came a period of time when he actually feigned an illness in order to ask for John to come and stay with him and oversee his care. “I had come to fear,” he said quietly, “that Dr. Watson would do some kind of harm to himself.”

“That was when you began to ask me to allow you to tell Watson that I was alive.” I should have known my brother well enough to know that he would not ask me to risk my safety without excellent reason; though sentiment is not unknown to Mycroft, it would never outweigh my well-being in his estimation. 

He had been trying to save Watson, and I, selfish fool that I was, would not permit it. 

“I hope you understand,” Mycroft said, “why I could not elaborate upon the circumstances that made me ask you so urgently.”

I did, of course. I had to admit to myself that even if he had told me about his concerns at that time, I would likely have dismissed them as fanciful nonsense. It had never occurred to me that Watson would be so affected.

I had been greatly surprised upon my return at the intensity of Watson’s reaction, as it went far deeper than the shock and pleasure that I had anticipated. Shock, indeed, had been his first response – but then, if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that Watson had been profoundly hurt by my deception, or that he was struggling with having been betrayed by his dearest friend.

If I hadn’t known better. Of course I had deceived him, and betrayed him, and hurt him. Dear God, he’d loved me, and I hadn’t even _noticed_. 

I had left him thinking I was dead – and then I came back blithely expecting him to exclaim in wonder at my ingenious escape. 

The quiet, subdued John Watson who now lived under this roof with me now suddenly made sense. I had done all of these things to him – done them without remorse, or without even a second thought – but he still loved me enough that despite my callous disregard for his feelings, he believed that being with me was better than being without me.

And to think of how close I could have come to being without him…

I have since tried to remember the last time before that day that I had openly wept, but I cannot.

~o0o~

It was a trying couple of days – far more so for poor Watson than for me, of course. I was certainly not the caregiver that he was, but I never left his side as long as he was ill. 

I kept his medicine in him at regular intervals, put cool compresses on his burning brow and added blankets to his bed when he shivered with chills, trying to reassure him when his fevered imagination made him see things that were not there. 

My heart ached at the number of times that Watson, in his delirium, was trying to protect me from some unknown menace – and I was unable to convince him that I was safe and by his side. At length, I crawled into the bed with him and pulled his too-hot body close in my arms – and at that, he finally relaxed and subsided into sleep. I held him thus long into the night, and I was with him when the dreadful fever broke at last and left him exhausted but peaceful. 

With no small difficulty, I managed not to awaken Watson as I eased him into a dry nightshirt — his own having been drenched with his perspiration as the fever released him. Joining him again under the covers, I pulled his unresisting body into my arms, relishing the sensation of having him near, and safe, and healing. At last, I allowed myself to join him in a deep and restorative sleep.

I felt him stir against my breast with the first rays of dawn. His sudden tension told me that for the first time in several days, he was free of the fog of delirium and fully able to understand what was going on around him. I could imagine that after days of illness and confusion, coming at last to awareness in the arms of another man would be rather disconcerting, to say the least.

Disconcerting or no, now that I understood his heart (and my own, of course) more fully, I had no intention of letting him go – and so I told him.

“It’s taken me far too long to have you in my arms, John Watson. You’ll need to accustom yourself to being here, for I won’t be without you any longer.”

I certainly had not anticipated the shove that not only disengaged me from the embrace, but which deposited me on the floor in a rather unceremonious heap. Watson was glowering down at me, looking impressively intimidating for a man so recently awakened.

“Two things, Sherlock Holmes,” he said in a voice that was slightly hoarse from disuse – but so very welcome to my ears all the same. “One – I don’t much care for being in your arms without damn well knowing why I’m there. And two – if I don’t take care of a matter of some urgency immediately, we’ll both regret it.”

I laughed despite myself; I should have known better than to have expected Watson to simply fall swooning into my arms like some maiden in a penny novel. I owed the man… well, I owed him any number of things, and he would have them. Explanations, apologies, all of them. 

And besides, no maiden in a penny novel would forsake her knight in shining armor because she had to have a piss, immediately.

Whether it was due to my powers of persuasion or to Watson’s eventual willingness to be persuaded, I managed to insinuate myself back into his embrace while I provided him with all of the myriad reasons that I never wished to let him go. 

Apologies, even (perhaps especially) those that I know to be the most necessary, do not come easily to me. Admitting that I had been in the wrong — worse still, admitting that I had failed to observe and understand — was nigh onto impossible, for all that it was also vitally important. Having my beloved doctor tucked warmly against my heart made it just that little bit easier to begin to tell him all the things he so badly needed to hear.

Of course, it will be the work of far more than a morning to express to John Watson all of the regret, the profound sorrow, I have for the indescribable pain that he suffered for the sake of loving me. That he has continued to love me after everything I put him through is nothing short of astonishing, and certainly more than I deserved from him.

It will be a much more pleasant effort, and one of hopefully many years’ undertaking, to express to him all of the love I have for him in return, and to tell him how inexpressibly dear, how utterly vital, he will always be to me. 

I find little ways – for example, I surprised him on a recent evening by playing him a version of his charming little lullaby on my violin. He had been so feverish himself at the time, the poor man, that he scarcely even remembered singing it to me – and was greatly embarrassed to know that I’d heard him say “Dinna fash yourself, lad.” (I persuaded him at some length that I had found it extremely appealing – and may have persuaded him to bring out his Scottish burr on other occasions as well.) 

As might be imagined, I have found other ways to show Watson my love for him as well, of course – but those may be slightly too, shall we say, _unconventional_ for this narrative.

After all, I suppose it goes without saying that ours has never been a conventional friendship, Watson’s and mine. 


End file.
